Basically it says that the reason humans and indeed other animals die of old age is that we have a sort of 'death program' that kicks in and shuts us down. It suggests that if we stop the gene that does this we could live to be very old, or at least be healthy and fully functioning a lot longer.

I once read somewhere some scientist saying that the first person that will live past 1,000 has already been born. I'm not sure this is true but how long do you think we will live given medical advances such as this (I'm in my 20's now).

everything i have read indicates the human body can handle 125 years at best. medical advances are nice but adding to the lifespan does not necessarily add to quality.

dementia actually adds a little to life span, since the mind is unaware of
any other problem. frustration or other depressive attitudes that cause many problems in older folks have no effect.

i know very few that are past 70, that think their life was a waste. many think they could have done more or wish they could change something but in some way are satisfied with self perceived achievements.

I once read somewhere some scientist saying that the first person that will live past 1,000 has already been born. I'm not sure this is true but how long do you think we will live given medical advances such as this (I'm in my 20's now).

That's pretty funny and very unlikely to say the least.
There is more than a gene involved in the aging process. If there is such genes, there is reasons behind. Those genes do not exist for every species. Trees for example, like olive tree can live for more than ten thousands of years, but it's not the case for animals.
We are just at the begining to find all the factors involved in the aging process.

As I understand things, 'brain cells' die at a fairly regular rate from (before birth) - the death rate determines how long you remain non-senile, there is a disease called Huntington's disease (formerly Huntington's chorea) in which a much greater rate is experienced, A person with this disease can, by the age of 35-50 be almost completely destroyed, and living by lower brain functions only, it is very rare (about 5000 current UK sufferers) and generic, so sadly, it will on average take half the victims offspring, it makes almost all other diseases look like a bad cold.

As we live longer years so we seem to uncover more layers of disease so if we cured all the diseases of today and lived till 110 or so we'd pretty soon come across new problems. I believe the urge to live forever is nothing more than a romantic notion, and if ever it becomes 'true' it will be rather like Nelson's flagship Victory, virtually no part of the ship is original after 200 or so years.

Assuming we could develope the technology that would allow the human body to bypass physical deterioration, that still leaves the question of ones mental fortitude. I'm not talking about brain deffects like alzheimers or dementia, I'm talking about the human psyche.

If one could live for, lets say, 1,000 years what would be the psychological limitations of having all of that experience? Would there even be any limits? Would your mind grow and evolve over that amount of time or would you just go insane. What about something as simple as memory. If you lived through a millenia could you even remember the first ten, twenty or even eighty years of your life?

I wonder how much a person would change over such a long period of time. Hell, for that matter, how many different ways of being can a person change into?

Good point Kolt. I guess on such a time scale staying motivated and occupied would be a problem. If you have a strong interest (in science for example) or some big mission, then living forever is a nice prospect. But for most people this doesn't really apply I think, they enjoy most of their life but wouldn't know what to do if they'd suddenly get another decade or more to live.

But still, I wonder why in a hypothetical situation humans can't live forever. Most of our body is replacable, it's just quite complicated to do so (it's hard to patch up a damaged organ, let alone creating and 'installing' a new one from scratch). But maybe only the brain is unreplacable. We can replace dead brain cells with new ones, but they probably wouldn't be the same. Unless we someday learn to 'encode' brain cells :wink:

whether it's possible or not (which i don't feel it is), i would NOT want to live forever. life is hard, i want relief from it eventually.
...
Living longer to learn more would be great, but I'd rather not keep living and keep falling apart piece by piece.

If you are as young as your name implies, you are either very wise, or a depressive.

Mr U has a point; I think that if people thought they would live a thousand years, they would just screw around for the first nine hundred.

And could we keep learning for a thousand years? My parents started using home computers in their sixties, but I know people under sixty now who can barely use a computer at work. [And even my parents couldn't operate a VCR better than their pre-school grand-children.]

Some refusal to learn is deliberate [I don't need an iPod, I don't want an iPod, and I will never have an iPod], but some seems a natural consequence of age. I need to read things aloud now to remember them.

And Kolt has a point; there is so much pain in life. How much loss, disillusion, and despair can we survive? As we get older each new pain is a bit easier - after one has survived so many, one knows one will survive the most recent - but the accumulation wears on one.

Can you imagine processing all the change in the world since sixty year before the Battle of Hasting? Eighty year before the Domesday Book? Even before the first Europeans arrived in North America? Changes on the order of going from peat fires with no flue to solar panels. From wind power and back again?

I suspect after a hundred odd years I will be willing to move on to the next stage.

whether it's possible or not (which i don't feel it is), i would NOT want to live forever. life is hard, i want relief from it eventually.
...
Living longer to learn more would be great, but I'd rather not keep living and keep falling apart piece by piece.

If you are as young as your name implies, you are either very wise, or a depressive.

I guess i'm very wise. Thank you. And i'm 17, by the way. 18 in 21 days.

"There is a kind of lazy pleasure in useless and out-of-the-way erudition." -Jorge Luis Borges

I think we'd slow down, our 'life history' that is. We've been talking about this is one of my classes. Most insects live very short lifespans(compared to us), they are small, mature quickly, breed quickly and have lots of offspring. The offspring will do the exact same thing. Some flies only live a week. I'm sure that life is very full and rewarding to them, granted they can experience that sensation.

Now if we look at something like elephants, they live a long time, breed not-so-often, and when they do, the gestation period is really long(like 2 years). Even getting to the stage of of full maturity takes a really long time. Now even beyond that, something like a giant sea turtle, some have been documented to live for hundreds of years.

If we were changing ourselves on such a fundamental level as to increase our lifespan 10-15 times, would we our life history "slow down"?

This aspect really has to be decided before we can discuss. Will we mature at the same age and then live as adults for 980 years? or will it take 200 years for us to hit adulthood? That aspect would have a lot to do with the mental breakdown and absorption of information. Those turtles seem to get by just fine living for that long, but they are built for it(kinda). So will we be built for it? If i was told at the age of 30 that i was granted another 1000 years, i would probably be quite insane by the end. However if i was born and my body designed to live too 1000, there probably wouldn't be any problems... yes? no?

something i just thought of... according to the...um...'rules of nature,' shouldn't we not live much past the time when we become unable to reproduce? because then we're not really benefitting the population in any way... except through the work force i guess, but many people (or most) retire after awhile. I'm certainly not suggesting getting rid of all the dear old grandparents or anything, but does it tend to work this way in the wild? that an animal's lifespan doesn't extend much beyond the years when it stops reproducing? if that's the case, we definitely shouldn't be living for much longer than maybe 150 yrs tops, i'd think...

note: i'm not saying we "shouldn't" live past 150 because it's morally wrong, but if lifespan is correlated with the time during which we reproduce, then our bodies just aren't designed to live much into our non-reproductive years...

"There is a kind of lazy pleasure in useless and out-of-the-way erudition." -Jorge Luis Borges

something i just thought of... according to the...um...'rules of nature,' shouldn't we not live much past the time when we become unable to reproduce? because then we're not really benefitting the population in any way... except through the work force i guess, but many people (or most) retire after awhile.

Each individual has more to offer to the species than babies. Humans in particular need several generations in a family. When we are best suited to give birth, we are poorly prepared to care for and educate our young. I think homo sapiens would have ended up just another perplexing evolutionary dead-end but for our most striking evolutionary adaptation:

The Grandmother.

Opposable thumbs and complex language are all very nice, but who was keeping the kids alive while others were tying snare knots and communicating hunting strategies? Grandmother.

Strong, because she survived giving birth; tough, having survived giving birth several times; free from personal instinctual ties to specific young but with a nuturing habit; and with the experience and knowledge that could come only with age. Add that to lesser physical strength, and you have a perfect problem solver.

[And, in my experience, one hard-ass bitch who could put a Marine drill sargeant in his place with one hand mixing the brownies and the other sipping on blackberry brandy. Old women are tough.]

something i just thought of... according to the...um...'rules of nature,' shouldn't we not live much past the time when we become unable to reproduce? because then we're not really benefitting the population in any way... except through the work force i guess, but many people (or most) retire after awhile.

Each individual has more to offer to the species than babies. Humans in particular need several generations in a family. When we are best suited to give birth, we are poorly prepared to care for and educate our young. I think homo sapiens would have ended up just another perplexing evolutionary dead-end but for our most striking evolutionary adaptation:

The Grandmother.

Opposable thumbs and complex language are all very nice, but who was keeping the kids alive while others were tying snare knots and communicating hunting strategies? Grandmother.

Strong, because she survived giving birth; tough, having survived giving birth several times; free from personal instinctual ties to specific young but with a nuturing habit; and with the experience and knowledge that could come only with age. Add that to lesser physical strength, and you have a perfect problem solver.

[And, in my experience, one hard-ass bitch who could put a Marine drill sargeant in his place with one hand mixing the brownies and the other sipping on blackberry brandy. Old women are tough.]

ok, i see that. but i still don't see reason for us to live much beyond 150 or 200ish. i know you didn't say we should, just pointing that out... those ages still provide a couple generations older than the mothers...

"There is a kind of lazy pleasure in useless and out-of-the-way erudition." -Jorge Luis Borges

Basically it says that the reason humans and indeed other animals die of old age is that we have a sort of 'death program' that kicks in and shuts us down. It suggests that if we stop the gene that does this we could live to be very old, or at least be healthy and fully functioning a lot longer.

I once read somewhere some scientist saying that the first person that will live past 1,000 has already been born. I'm not sure this is true but how long do you think we will live given medical advances such as this (I'm in my 20's now).

Haha yes. Have you heard of the inventor Ray Kurzwell. He has a book that gives tips on how to live long enoguh to live forever suggesting that through nanotechnology we will divise a way to do this. What I think is so silly though is that we in fact do live forever. That is untill we are forced to die by some environmental force. Ever since the first cell we have been alive, constantly replicating. Our false sense of individuality makes us feel llike we are dieing when in reality the same process goes on forever: DNA replication and mutation. I am, what is it, 2 billion years old?

Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only realize the truth. There is no spoon. Then you'll see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself. -Spoon Boy

I think that there is an issue in this debate that has to be cleared, and this is the difference between physical life (the mind existing inside an especific biological body)and "conscient" life (the mind existing independently from where it exists ).

I think that eternal physical life is imposible. Althoug medicine has made and will make major breakthroughs, the biological body we have will someday stop working. But on the other hand I think that the body is a barrier for the mind, in the sense that it limits the improvement of one self by, for example, dying. But that doesn't mean that the only place for a mind to exist is a body. In other words, I believe that in the future (if human stupidity lets us go that far) there will be technologies that will let us "detroy" the barrier of the body, and make our mind an eternal entity.
I don't only belive this, I also think that modern scientific research should start to work in this issue.

To deal with the capacity problem, (Would I remember the first 50 years of my 1000 years life) I thnk that, as with computers, there is a way to expand our minds capacity and that this technic will evolve and maybe will use the same principles as the technic for storing consciousness.

I am aware that this is a very optimistic view of the future, and that it has almost no sustainable arguments, but as a future scientist and a human I like to think that what I'm doing is for a better future, that in fact will come true. We will see, I hope.

Interesting. Buddhism is very much like what you are saying. Once you become enlightened or gain complete mastery of the mind (and sometimes the body if you are a true yogi) your body dies but your mind lives on. Some Buddhas can even return as teachers (Boddhisatvas) like the Dahlai Lama.

If this makes no sense it is like the Jedi Knights in Star Wars. When they die only their bodies die and there true entities continue on.

It brings up the idea of reicarnation in which the life or mind reicarnates many times untill it reaches enlightenment.

Interesting stuff. To think we may one day reach this point through scientific means. Would it confirm the old beliefs or defy them? Would it be cheating?? Maybe science will give us a greater understanding of the old teachings so that we will be more capable of reaching this point; nirvana.

Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only realize the truth. There is no spoon. Then you'll see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself. -Spoon Boy

The interesting point is that we are litteraly scared, at the idea that after your death, nothing will remain.
We like to think that a part of us will continue somewhere, even on a difference plane of existence.

I absolutely hate the idea, that after my death, there will be absolutely nothing. I think that it's related with the instinct of conservation. The instinct of conservation is encoded in us at a very deep layer, and this instinct say that the death has to be avoided at any cost. As we know, granted our ability to see in the future, that we will die, we find a way to escape to this terrible horizon.
This is the root of all religions and all mysticisms. And even if logic say to me, that after my death there will be nothing, I find this totally unaceptable.

The interesting point is that we are litteraly scared, at the idea that after your death, nothing will remain.
We like to think that a part of us will continue somewhere, even on a difference plane of existence.

I absolutely hate the idea, that after my death, there will be absolutely nothing. I think that it's related with the instinct of conservation. The instinct of conservation is encoded in us at a very deep layer, and this instinct say that the death has to be avoided at any cost. As we know, granted our ability to see in the future, that we will die, we find a way to escape to this terrible horizon.
This is the root of all religions and all mysticisms. And even if logic say to me, that after my death there will be nothing, I find this totally unaceptable.

Not really true, I will live through my children my DNA has been passed on I have mostly served my purpose and so will be shedded from the human race as I shed skin particles, I say that at a very late age, I've had time to overcome any inhibitions of death, of course it would be nice to live on but not practical as I lose a little more of me each day, I'd also rather fancy a break from Tinitus which plagues my every waken moment, hearing loss, can't run as fast lift as much, see unaided, think as fast, learn as much, only seem to 'mate' in my dreams these days, unable to secure part time work, AND I am taking up valuable space which would bettter be occupied by a new Human - give somebody else the gift of life to appreciate. Even the universe is destined to end so immortality will eventually lead to a cold dark lonely existence. No, better to retire at the peak like an athlete and let someone else have a go!

So come on Doc appreciate it while it's there cos after that there's 'eff all'.

The interesting point is that we are litteraly scared, at the idea that after your death, nothing will remain.
We like to think that a part of us will continue somewhere, even on a difference plane of existence.

I absolutely hate the idea, that after my death, there will be absolutely nothing. I think that it's related with the instinct of conservation. The instinct of conservation is encoded in us at a very deep layer, and this instinct say that the death has to be avoided at any cost. As we know, granted our ability to see in the future, that we will die, we find a way to escape to this terrible horizon.
This is the root of all religions and all mysticisms. And even if logic say to me, that after my death there will be nothing, I find this totally unaceptable.

Not really true, I will live through my children my DNA has been passed on I have mostly served my purpose and so will be shedded from the human race as I shed skin particles, I say that at a very late age, I've had time to overcome any inhibitions of death, of course it would be nice to live on but not practical as I lose a little more of me each day, I'd also rather fancy a break from Tinitus which plagues my every waken moment, hearing loss, can't run as fast lift as much, see unaided, think as fast, learn as much, only seem to 'mate' in my dreams these days, unable to secure part time work, AND I am taking up valuable space which would bettter be occupied by a new Human - give somebody else the gift of life to appreciate. Even the universe is destined to end so immortality will eventually lead to a cold dark lonely existence. No, better to retire at the peak like an athlete and let someone else have a go!

So come on Doc appreciate it while it's there cos after that there's 'eff all'.

Of course, as an individual thinking entity, we will be erased at our death, but as a human, we will give an heritage :
- heritage of the DNA via our kids
- heritage of our teaching (kids, and many other people whom we have interacted with)
- heritage of all our achievements

So as a thinking entity, we will loss everything (there is probabiliy nothing after), but we will give an heritage to the others.

The short answer is probably not since forever is a longtime and atomic decay might eventually be a problem for an unaltered human as we are today.

Do you consider genetically modified and cybernetically enhaced humans to be still humans? Or what about hypothetical counsciousness transfer is that still a human because he started out as human? If you say yes to these then I think it possible to have individuals that can exist for millions of years.

Until such a time we can seek solace in our survival as a species and as Powerdoc pointed out in the transmission of our knowledge, heritage and hopes to future generations, the same way individual cells in your body may die while the being that is yourself continues to live.

i do not know what to believe right know, but i just had the most chilling thought in my life. i thought of dying, and not having the ability of thinking for the rest of time... to not even thing of black, or white, but to just think of... well not think at all..... its a scary though indeed....

i do not know what to believe right know, but i just had the most chilling thought in my life. i thought of dying, and not having the ability of thinking for the rest of time... to not even thing of black, or white, but to just think of... well not think at all..... its a scary though indeed....

i do not know what to believe right know, but i just had the most chilling thought in my life. i thought of dying, and not having the ability of thinking for the rest of time... to not even thing of black, or white, but to just think of... well not think at all..... its a scary though indeed....

i just though i would share that with you guys :l

Hold up Darth, Contemplate this for a moment. If once you die you no longer exist, is that really a bad thing? Remember, you do not exist so you can no longer think or feel anything because there is no longer "you". For one to suffer the agony of not existing is a contradiction in logic. A Void and/or nothingness is not something one can experience.
The only dred you may endure is the anticapation you feel from this moment until the moment you die. Therefore it's all about attitude.

Personally, I find the idea of "Nothing after Death" to be somewhat refreshing. People spend far too much time worrying about what will happen to them in the afterlife. Some people will even go so far as to limit their life experiences to appease the standards, rules and regulations of what they belive they will encounter in the next life. Bulls**t! Thats what I say. Again, it is all about attitude. Once you put yourself in the frame of mind that there is nothing after death, it makes every moment of your life all the more significant.

So it's the old proverbeal "Live your life to it's fullest". Because in this case, it may be the only life you'll ever get.

I'm not sure if this is true, and I don't have any evidence to suggest that one field is moving quicker than the other, but just as a knee-jerk reaction, I would say we may be looking at machinery increasing our age, and our quality of life as we get up there. Cyborg-like enhancements.

For example, in Germany they are implanting wonderful four-chambered pumps in patients who do not have a donor heart waiting. It requires a bulky tank of compressed air, but it keeps the person alive; clock work.

"My country is the world, and my religion is to do good." Thomas Paine

i do not know what to believe right know, but i just had the most chilling thought in my life. i thought of dying, and not having the ability of thinking for the rest of time... to not even thing of black, or white, but to just think of... well not think at all..... its a scary though indeed....

i just though i would share that with you guys :l

Hold up Darth, Contemplate this for a moment. If once you die you no longer exist, is that really a bad thing? Remember, you do not exist so you can no longer think or feel anything because there is no longer "you". For one to suffer the agony of not existing is a contradiction in logic. A Void and/or nothingness is not something one can experience.
The only dred you may endure is the anticapation you feel from this moment until the moment you die. Therefore it's all about attitude.

Personally, I find the idea of "Nothing after Death" to be somewhat refreshing. People spend far too much time worrying about what will happen to them in the afterlife. Some people will even go so far as to limit their life experiences to appease the standards, rules and regulations of what they belive they will encounter in the next life. Bulls**t! Thats what I say. Again, it is all about attitude. Once you put yourself in the frame of mind that there is nothing after death, it makes every moment of your life all the more significant.

So it's the old proverbeal "Live your life to it's fullest". Because in this case, it may be the only life you'll ever get.

as you said, you should live life to the fullest right? well does it really matter how you spend it? i mean will everthing you ever did be erased from your existence? it wouldnt really matter how you spent it, becuase in 70 or 80(if you are lucky). you will ultimatly lose everything

"as you said, you should live life to the fullest right? well does it really matter how you spend it? i mean will everthing you ever did be erased from your existence? it wouldnt really matter how you spent it, becuase in 70 or 80(if you are lucky). you will ultimatly lose everything"

If you do not find that you enjoy the wonderful experiences of life enough, that you cannot find the truth in the phrase "live life to the fullest," then I am sorry for you. Does it matter in the grand scheme of things? No, of course not. Our planet will eventually be scorched by the sun, or hit by another meteor, or come to close to a star gone super-nova. But who cares. This is not a case to be made for the existence of an after-life. It is simply how things are, and it would seem to me that if all you are able to set your mind on is the fact that all will be lost, rather than all has not been lost, then you will live either a life full of depression, and gloom, or turn to nonsensical belief systems just for comfort.

If it is comfort you seek, then go find comfort. Find it in the encouragement, love and support from others. But don't think that the desire for comfort is instant validation for the product of that desire (an after-life).

"My country is the world, and my religion is to do good." Thomas Paine

as you said, you should live life to the fullest right? well does it really matter how you spend it? i mean will everthing you ever did be erased from your existence? it wouldnt really matter how you spent it, becuase in 70 or 80(if you are lucky). you will ultimatly lose everything

Your still not seeing the big picture here. Assuming there is nothing after death, you will ultimatly lose "nothing" because "you" will not exist. One moment you will be there and the next moment you will be gone. But you won't experience the next moment because.....you won't be there. So there won't be any sense of loss. Dique makes a good point. The future, that is what happens to you after you die, is simply not that important.

Everything you have ever done in your life, everything you have ever experienced, everything you will ever know - you will always know. Except in this case, the "always" is relative. It ends when you die. Yet that won't matter because you will not be there to experience it. You will not be anywhere. Spending the rest of your days brooding about the fact that you will eventually be erased from all-and-everything. Thats the only real suffering. So like I said before, It's all about your outlook on life.

Just know that, by all probability, there really is no end. And even if there is, you'll never know it when it hits you. So....all things being equal.......there really is no end.

They need a smiley emoticon that has Yoda ears. Use one of those right about now - I really could.

i also have had that chilling feeling of the nothingness of death. several times.

then again, think about this:
natural laws states that energy or mass cannot disappear. it can only transform into the one or other state.
so if we first contemplate what our mind is, our memory, feelings and so forth, our mind doesn't disappear, or cease to exist. it merely transforms into a different entity of matter and energy.

i also have had that chilling feeling of the nothingness of death. several times.

then again, think about this:
natural laws states that energy or mass cannot disappear. it can only transform into the one or other state.
so if we first contemplate what our mind is, our memory, feelings and so forth, our mind doesn't disappear, or cease to exist. it merely transforms into a different entity of matter and energy.

Before life, after death, the same thing for you and I - nothing, yet not many people seem to say, Death can't be that bad, it will be just like before I was born.

Perhaps the first words kids should learn, are "Phew I'm glad that's over with and that I'm alive now!" - but they don't because there is no memory of pre-life.

As for where the energy goes, the heat of your body dissipates into the atmosphere, the current stops flowing, and that's it, where does the intelligence of your computer go when you switch it off?

the intelligence of my computer is pre-programmed, so when its turned off, it freezes.
and when a part of my computers pre-programming is broken, it either works badly, or fails completely.

i know that my visual perception of the world is because of vibrating little lumps in my eye sensitive to electromagnetic radiation of specific bands of light.
i know that taste and smell is also the result of these processes,
and i'd guess again, its vibrations.
i know that my abilility to think abstractly is due to the advanced nature of my brain, and that i am uncapable of imagining things that i have knowledge of, and in those cases, piece together things from various things i know, into this knew unknown.

and i know, when i die, all these processes will stop functioning.

what i'm wondering, is if the energy which doesn't disappear but converts, makes us into everything, and from everything can become individual again?

i'm quit surprised actually that we are only capable of percepting things that are in the limits of our senses, instead of acting like a united mindforce.
actually, i am not even in full control of my body.
it works more like a doll i am capable of manipulating to my will, to a limit.
mostly because it consists of billions upon billions of individual cells each with their own task, and living their own life.
even the brain works this way.
i'm not implying that we are the "spirit" while our body is a mere tool,
it seems more like we are more a combination of what our bodyparts make us, rather than a single perceptible form.
this is probably why religious people has such a hard time believing that we are not merely matter and energy, but "something else" too.

so why are "I" perceiving reality and not "we" ?
why isn't the world working like a single uniform unity of everything, and instead its a huge conglomerate mess of individuals?
or maybe there is a global "we"?

sorry got a lot on my mind, and new to this forum, so my ideas and thoughts might be a bit messy.

when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth
A.C Doyle